


Detour

by zephyras13



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Action/Adventure, Artificial Intelligence, Dystopia, F/M, Future Fic, Present Tense, Robots, Romance, Season/Series 03, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephyras13/pseuds/zephyras13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After six months, John Connor has all but given up on finding Cameron and has focused his every effort on fighting the machines and fulfilling his destiny. But destiny is a fickle thing and the future has more in store for John Connor than he ever could have imagined. John/Cameron. Post-Born to Run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Terminator fic! Oh, god, what have I done...
> 
> Anyway, just going to put it out here now: I have no idea where I'm going with this story. If you've read any of my stuff before, you'll know that I suck at updating in a timely fashion and since I don't know what I'm doing with this story, it's probably going to be even worse. So...yeah...
> 
> This is my particular take on what happens after John jumps forward into the lovely apocalyptic world of 2029. I realize this is not even close to being an original idea, so I'm going to try to focus on characterization more than the actual plot, because there are tons of fics out there that do a wonderful job at telling the story of how John forms the Resistance and defeats Skynet in a virtual season three-esque way.
> 
> So, I hope you enjoy the prologue and hopefully Chapter One will be out (vaguely) soon! Please review and tell me what you think, or if you have any ideas or criticism!

Detour-

Prologue-

Derek's left arm is bent at an odd angle and his younger brother is coughing painfully, blood dripping down his chin, staining the unrelenting cement floor. Allison is curled up in a ball at his side, pulling halfheartedly at the manacle fastened around her emaciated wrist in a way that's horrifyingly reminiscent of the dog that used to follow her everywhere. He doesn't think Jesse's here. He hopes she isn't.

Derek should have known it would come to this.

He stares unseeingly at the ceiling, listening to the groans and pleas of the people around him, nearly a hundred strong, refugees and soldiers alike. Men, women, and even a few children crowded into a little, gray, putrid, room in their little, gray, putrid world. They are like rats. No different than any other day then.

Derek lets out a snort of sardonic laughter.

He should have known better than to hope for anything more than basic survival. He should have realized that striving to defeat Skynet once and for all was nothing more than a fool's errand. He should have _known_...

He should have known that they were all going to die.

But then John Connor had come, completely out of nowhere, and in the six months Derek had known him, he had made Derek truly believe that things could be better. It wasn't a sudden realization, especially because the nature of Connor's appearance made him seem suspicious. He had asked a lot of stupid questions at first and had stared at Allison a lot, causing Kyle to worry that he would try and assault the youngest member of their group. They reluctantly let him join their numbers, forcing him to swear that he would do what they told him, no questions asked. This agreement soon became unnecessary and later downright ironic as adding Connor to their group became the best decision they ever made. He may have been young and completely uninformed about the reality of their situation, but it soon became clear that Connor was more than just another orphaned kid. He knew how to shoot, how to survive in the most desolate of areas, and how to avoid detection when necessary. But most importantly, he could strategize, come up with a plan of attack in seconds, evaluate a potentially deadly situation instantly, and knew when to back off. Soon not a single decision was made without his input and eventually, Connor was the one giving them orders.

Suddenly it didn't matter that he said strange things sometimes, that even after months he had a hard time looking Allison in the eye, that he was constantly referring to their group as the "Resistance," enough to make Derek think he had been a fan of the Star Wars movies if he hadn't known that Connor was much too young to have even seen them in the first place, much less remember them. It didn't matter that he was nearly half Derek's age, that he avoided questions about his past, except once, when he spoke wistfully about his "tough as nuclear nails" mother.

Connor taught them the most effective ways to kill the metal bastards that had terrorized them for so long. He asked other groups of survivors to join them, speaking passionately about striking back at Skynet, about taking back their lives. The other groups, formerly their rivals in nearly everything, were suspicious of his motives, but eventually they were won over as well. Their numbers increased twenty-fold in the first three months. He turned the underground tunnels of Los Angeles into a series of bases instead of a place they used only to sleep and had them dig more. He organized people into groups, some to look for other survivors, some to sift through trash to look for anything useful, most to look for food. He gathered together anyone with a background in engineering to fix twenty year old vehicles and eventually airplanes, build weapons, construct Skynet-proof radios, and after their victory at Seranno Point, to bring electricity and heat to each underground bunker. John Connor brought order to the pathetic masses that were the human race, at least the ones in the Western Hemisphere and Australia after they liberated a nuclear sub, and Derek knew he had plans to eventually spread the fight across to the other side of the world as well.

They were a bunch of mindless rabble, barely better than animals and John Connor turned them into an army. If he could unite half the world in six months, Derek thought at the time, what couldn't he do? There is a reason that people call him "the General" though never to his face, because for some odd reason, Connor hates the title.

Three months in and everyone Derek knew would give their life for John Connor. He is their savior, their messiah, and Derek believes in him more than the god his parents taught him about in childhood, oh, so long ago. John Connor was going to defeat Skynet. John Connor was going to save them all. For the first time in years the future doesn't seem completely bleak, and Derek began to imagine a world without Skynet, a world without metal, a world where he and Kyle could live free of constant fear.

It is ridiculous, of course, because then Skynet finally takes them seriously and strikes _hard_. They launched two simultaneous attacks and took the entirety of both Kansas and Hammerhead Bunkers, their two main bases, prisoner.

Even that could be surmountable, except for the fact that John Connor was also taken prisoner. And now they, the Resistance as everyone now calls it, both inside and outside of Skynet's large, ever-expanding network of control, wait to be tortured for information and put to death.

He knows now that putting all his trust in a seventeen year old kid was a mistake. He knows now that allowing himself to hope was a foolish delusion. Because Derek Reese _is_ going to die for John Connor now, and it won't mean a damned thing. And that hurts more than anything, more than the thought of his own mortality, because, let's face it, he's been prepared to die for years now. Or at least he thinks it hurts the most, but that changes when Connor is dragged back into the room, their prison, by a Terminator in human form, body in tatters.

A moan of horror rises from the prisoners as the Terminator shackles Connor's bloody, tortured body to a spot on the far wall, away from the rest of them. His face is a bloody mess from what Derek can see, puncture wounds winding down both arms, like the ruined landscape they've had to make their lives upon for so many years. He's hunched over, curled up slightly, an automatic, _human_ response to a force that does not tire, does not empathize, and absolutely does not _stop._ He looks so small.

And suddenly, he sees Connor as he truly is, just a kid, an extraordinary kid, but a kid nonetheless. A poor, idealistic kid who is going to die. For them. And for the first time since they surrendered, he feels rage overtake him and chase away the despair.

"Son of a bitch!" he snarls at the machine, whose inhuman knuckles are covered in Connor's blood, whose hands broke Connor's bones, mutilated him without hesitation or fear of reprisal. "I'll fucking kill you, you piece of metal shit!"

The machine turns to look at him emotionlessly, a harsh, jagged, _empty_ look, as he struggles furiously against the chains. Its face, the face of a handsome-looking Asian male in his late twenties only furthering to incense him.

"Derek," Kyle gasps from the ground next to him, coughing warm flecks of blood onto Derek's curled fists. "Derek, don't..."

But the machine does not try and silence him, and moves towards the door and exits the room, its task completed.

"Oh, God," Allison says hoarsely, her shoulder-length, dirty hair swaying as she pushes herself into a seated position so she can see him. "Oh, God, oh, god, oh, god."

"Connor!" Derek hears Perry shout, from all the way at the back of the room. "Shit, Connor!"

John Connor does not respond, and Derek feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. He's alive. He _has_ to be, right? They wouldn't have brought him back if he was dead, would they? They wouldn't kill him, because despite him being the leader, there are still plenty of other Resistance fighters all over the Western Hemisphere, a few in Australia, and a couple other spread around small Pacific islands. Unless...panic begins to flare up to level Derek hasn't felt since Judgment Day, unless Connor had broken. Unless he had _told_ them where they were. Everyone breaks eventually, Connor had always said, but some part of Derek had always held him to a higher standard.

Even though he's one of the nearest people to the door, he's still too far away to tell for sure... He doesn't think Connor's breathing.

He lets his head fall to the cold, stone floor in defeat.

"Connor," people whisper around him. "John Connor!"

"Fuck," he gasps, fingernails biting into his arm close, but not too close to the black barcode burned into his skin. " _Connor_..."

It this it? he questions numbly, body sinking its way slowly, but surely down to the floor. He hears sobbing from several different places in the room and the cold feeling in his gut spreads further. He thought he was prepared for this possibility before, but he wasn't. He turns instinctively as his younger brother starts coughing again and grasps his shoulder with as much strength as he can muster.

"Kyle," he chokes, despite everything, still wanting to protect him as much as possible. "Kyle, please, don't you dare lea-"

The door crashes open.

Derek whirls around and then freezes. Stares. He turns to look at Allison, whose face is a picture of horror.

"No," Derek gasps, hand still clutching Kyle's shoulder. "No..."

This was their plan, he sees. They figured out how to copy the most well-known members of the Resistance-

Allison lets out a whimper, more tears sliding down her cheeks. "Oh," she sobs, "oh, oh, oh, oh, _oh-_ "

It's a copy, a perfect copy of Allison Young. Its expression is blank, and its posture stiff, the only indication that it is a machine. It surveys the room robotically, but stops when its gaze reaches John Conner.

This is the end. Even if the Resistance could last a month without John Connor...it's over. If they made a copy of Allison, they can make a copy of Connor and then with one final strike they will ruin the best and only chance for the survival of the human race. Derek sags further to the floor as Allison mouths wordlessly, her hands shaking as if ice-water had just been poured over her.

He assumes the machine has come for Allison, to study her movements, her mannerisms, to better infiltrate their remaining bases, but the machine keeps staring at Connor.

Before Derek can do anything, say anything, _think_ anything, the door opens again and the machine that had brought Connor in just seconds ago is back.

"What are you doing here?" it says in its mechanical voice. "Who are you?"

The Not-Allison does not move for nearly five seconds before turning slowly to look at the other machine, a flat expression on its familiar face.

"Who are you?" the Terminator repeats, raising its automatic.

The Not-Allison reaches behind itself and pulls out a handgun from the waistband of its pants. It looks over toward them, _him_ , looks him straight in the eye, aims its gun and fires once.

It takes him approximately two seconds to realize that he has not been shot and he looks down to see that his chains have been severed. He gapes up at it as it fires five more times, severing the manacles of five more people around him, including Kyle and Allison.

"Out of the way," the Not-Allison says simply and a second later Derek finds out why, because then she is dropping the gun and taking a barrage of bullets in the chest from the Terminator. The bullets do not seem to effect her in the least bit and she barrels forward within seconds and shoves the Terminator straight at him. He barely drags Kyle out of the way and Allison is forced to roll quickly to the side to avoid being hit by the machine. The Not-Allison is on it a second later, fists pummeling it, causing vibrations to fill the entire room with a look of intense concentration on her face.

It shoves her against the wall and they grapple for a few seconds before she takes a knife out from a holster attached to her leg and stabs in in the eye. It jerks back reflexively and she pushes it over and pulls out the knife in one movement. In the next she jambs it into the back of its head and _carves_. The Terminator jerks to a standstill and then goes limp.

She removes the knife and stands. The entire room watches as she takes the steps towards Connor, slumped up against the wall on the opposing side of the room. She crouches down in front of him and touches his bloody face, stroking his bangs out of his eyes in a tender gesture that makes Derek sick.

"John," she says, voice soft and not at all like Allison's. "John, it's time to go."

She calls him by his first name, John, and it's wrong. No one calls him John. It's either Connor, John Connor, or even the General. Never just John. It sounds wrong on her filthy metal lips, even if she does look like Allison.

Derek's too far away to be sure, but he thinks he sees Connor move.

"John," she says in a louder voice, with something that might be described as urgency if she were not a machine, tapping the right side of his face lightly. "Wake up, John."

Connor's eyes flicker open.

Derek breaks his horrified silence to gasp, in half relief and half fear. What is the machine _doing_?

"Get _away_ from him, you Terminator bitch!" Sayles roars from several meters away, rattling his chains pointlessly.

The Not-Allison turns her head to survey him carefully. Idiot, Derek thinks as she eyes him, a look of contemplation on her-its face. Sayles never knew when to keep his mouth shut and this time it might be the end of him.

"Leave him alone!" an elderly woman shrieks from next to Kyle, her wrinkled, arthritic hands shaking, a maniac look on her face.

Angry hisses erupt, coupled with the sounds of chains clanking, almost immediately after that as the Resistance futilely attempts to protect their leader.

It's the end. They failed to protect the one person that could have saved them, but they will fight to their last breath so that he doesn't have to die alone. In that moment, Derek knows that they will go down, all of them will go down rather than give up on John Connor.

"Alright," Derek snarls, grasping at the broken manacle still attached to his wrist.

He pushes himself into a crouching position, watching with a strange sense of satisfaction as the world spins around him for a few seconds before cold, hard, reality sets in again. He looks down at his younger brother and they make eye contact- _one last time_ his mind supplies- and then he's turning towards the Not-Allison, feeling freer than he has since that fateful day a lifetime ago when he stood in the yard playing catch with Kyle and suddenly the whole world was on fire.

"Let's finish this," he snarls, trying to find the strength to get to his feet, blood, adrenaline, and the angry buzzing of his fellow soldiers reverberating in his ears.

But the machine does not respond to his threats, but instead turns away from him and back to Connor as their leader gives a series awful, painful-sounding coughs.

The angry voices in the large room quiet immediately as Connor shifts and coughs again.

"C...ron..." he gasps, a broken word or phrase that Derek does not understand.

Next to him, Allison gives a loud gasp. He turns to look at her in confusion, and he sees understanding beginning to dawn on her tear-streaked face. But before he can ask her exactly what she knows, the machine is speaking again.

"We've got to go, John," it says, her hand still on Connor's battered face.

She reaches up and breaks the chains holding him to the wall. Connor falls forward and she catches him. He lets out a low groan, muffled slightly by her shoulder. Fear courses through Derek like ice and he scrambles fruitlessly to get to his feet before she crushes their only hope into tiny little piec-

The machine picks him up carefully, like one would hold a precious vase. She cradles him like a baby, holding him as if he weren't technically larger than her and turns to look, again, straight at Derek. She walks towards him, and he's frozen, he can't move at all from his half-crouching, half-kneeling position, not even for John Connor. He looks up at her in dread as she bears down on him, stepping over the dead Terminator, pausing directly over its metal fingers and-

She kicks over the ring of keys directly into his hands.

"Derek Reese," she says calmly, Connor's blood dripping on her hands and down onto the floor. "Come with me if you want to live."


	2. Crawl Before You Walk

Chapter One-

Kyle's lungs are on fire. But to be honest, that's nothing new. He's had the cough for weeks now, like an ache that just won't _go away_ and it's gotten so bad he can barely sleep. He tries to think positive, but he's spent most of the last couple days surprised that there _isn't_ blood when he pulls back his hand. Derek is terrified, worrying over him like Mom used to do before everything went to hell, and Kyle's been trying to put on a brave face. But he knows he's dying. He can feel it in his bones, as sure as he's been of anything in his life. He'd planned to leave a note when things got too bad, when he'd no longer be useful, before going out and taking some metal with him, but of course Skynet had to fuck that up as well. Then he'd thought he was going to die anyway, with Derek, with Connor, and humanity's last chance of survival, but now...

"What?" Derek is saying, still crouching, hand gripping his shoulder protectively as if he's afraid Allison's going to...no, not Allison, she's-

"Now," the machine, a picture-fucking-perfect copy of Allison, how in the hell did they have the time to- "We do not have much time."

"You put him down!" one woman shouts, but the rest of the room still seems too shocked at the turn of events to follow her lead.

The copy does not react. "I do not intend to hurt him," she states calmly, adjusting Connor in her arms. "Come now if you wish to survive."

No one moves. Kyle doesn't understand anything. She's quite obviously a machine. She looks like Allison. But she killed the other machine, she's holding Connor now, not snapping his neck like any other machine would. Why is she here? Is it a trap?

"Who the hell-" Derek starts again, but then Allison makes a dive for the keys, jamming them into the lock of the nearest person's unbroken manacles.

"Allison, wha-"

"Do you want to die?" she snarls with a terrifyingly wild look in her eyes. She moves to the next person, her own broken chains swinging in time with her loose hair. "We have one chance, Derek, and I'm taking it!"

The room bursts into loud chatter, and it hurts Kyle's ears. He closes his eyes, head sagging down against the cold concrete floor. He's so _tired_. If he could just rest for a minute-

"Alright, SHUT UP!" Derek shouts, and even in the chaos, the room quiets immediately. Kyle cracks his eyes open to see Derek on his feet, breathing heavily and looking generally insane. "We are _going_. Pass those keys around, hurry!"

Kyle closes his eyes over the next few minutes of frantic voices and the clink of metal. But just as soon as he starts drifting away, he's being hauled up off the floor and straight into another coughing fit.

"No," he gasps once he gets his breath back, or most of it anyway. "You can't. I'll slow-"

"You finish that sentence, I'll break every bone in your body," Derek snarls in return, pulling his arm over his shoulders and grabbing Kyle's waist with his other hand. "C'mon, now!"

Kyle can't keep his eyes open, but they're walking and then they're out of the room. He does nothing but stumble over debris, smell the familiar smell of a burning building, and hear the shocked silence of the people around him and the cool, succinct orders of the Allison robot. Then there's the dusty wind of southern California on his face and he finally surrenders to unconsciousness.

* * *

He wakes to familiar jostling. He's on Derek's back, face pressed into the shoulder of his worn flak-jacket, and his chest aches.

"Derek," Kyle groans, choking a little on the scent of smoke and unwashed bodies. "Wha-"

"Shh," Derek says softly, adjusting him on his back with a grunt. "Relax, we're fine."

But Kyle knows that tone of voice. It doesn't spell disaster, but it hardly means they're in the clear. Derek is just trying not to worry him because he's sick. Kyle hates when he does that.

He's so tired he can barely open his eyes, but Kyle can tell they're still outside. It's almost nightfall-he can smell it-which means they've been walking for hours.

"What's...what's going on?" he manages to get out, before being thrown into another coughing fit.

"We're trying to get to Serrano Point," Derek says quietly, after his coughing subsides. "You've been out for a couple hours."

"Serrano Point?" Kyle gasps, panic starting to set in. Serrano Point is one of the most outlying bases they have. If they're going to Serrano Point, then-

"I know," Derek says tensely, squeezing the back of his leg in an attempt at comfort. "It's fifty miles, but it's...it's the closest there is."

The bottom of Kyle's stomach drops out as he realizes how far into machine territory they must be. With so many elderly and children, it'll probably take more than twenty-four hours to reach their destination, especially with the rough terrain.

There's an old man and a small girl that could probably be his granddaughter walking beside him and Derek. They both look exhausted, sweat leaving behind dirty smudge marks on the girl's face and the man wincing with every step. Kyle turns his head and he can see the whole mass of them behind them even in the bad light. Weary, thirsty, feet most likely a mass of blisters from walking, but alive. Against all odds, they've survived.

Kyle turns back forward and sees the machine, still holding Connor, striding far ahead of the group, undeterred by the jagged rocks or her burden.

"She still has Connor," he breathes in horror, voice high with fear. His fingers scramble helplessly on Derek's shoulders as he fully remembers what happened. "Derek, she's got Connor and-"  
"I know," Derek mutters, reaching up to grip his forearm comfortingly. "We can't...we have to get out of here first. We can't do anything before then."

"But, Serrano Point," Kyle says, almost accusingly. "How could you let her-"

There were more than a thousand people living at Serrano Point, most of them engineers and civilians to maintain their power source. There's only been a skeleton crew of soldiers there to protect it since they acquired the nuclear sub. If the fake Allison was able to get that information back to Skynet-

"You think I told her!?" Derek snarls, jerking his head around to look back at him as best he can. "S- _It_ was the one who knew where the closest base was. I didn't even know where we were."

Kyle takes a deep breath, and then tries not to have another coughing fit. He sags against his brother's back and tries to think of a way out of all this.

"What are we going to do?" he whispers and he feels Derek's shoulders slump.

"I don't know," Derek whispers miserably, stumbling a bit over a particularly sharp pile of rocks. Kyle abruptly wonders how Derek can still be carrying him if they've been walking for hours. He wants to tell Derek to put him down and let him walk himself, but he doesn't think he can.

"She- _It's_ the only reason we got this far in the first place," Derek continues softly, breathing heavily as they begin to climb a steep hill. "When we were walking out...all the other metal in the entire complex had already been taken out. I don't know what's going on, but we can figure that out after we're safe at Serrano Point. If it wanted to kill us or Connor, she could've done it a million times by now, and I have to make sure all these people-"

"Shh, shh, shh, it's okay," Kyle says, holding onto Derek's shoulder tightly. "I get it. We can do this, alright?"

He doesn't voice the concern that it might all be a trap, or that they have no water or provisions to get them through the long trek. Derek already knows this and right now he needs even the faintest hope that they can make it out of-

"Derek. Derek! _Derek!_ "

Derek has sunk to his knees and starts to slide down the hill. Kyle throws his arms around his neck and kick out his feet to stop his descent. He grabs his brother around the middle and turns him over shakily. Derek is barely conscious and is blinking slowly, eyes bloodshot and dazed.

"Derek!" Kyle gasps, shaking him and trying to hold back the painful cough building up in his chest. "Derek, get a hold of yourself!"

Out of nowhere Allison rushes forward to help him and together they drag him up to the top of the hill.

"Can we get some help here?" Kyle shouts, heedless of the danger and a small crowd of people begin to gather around them.  
He hopes someone will help him carry his brother, but Allison apparently has other ideas.

"Hey!" she shouts at her copy, leaping to her feet. "Hey, we need to stop!"

Kyle can't see what the copy's reaction is because of all the other people, but they soon scatter to the right of him and he watches her approach, Connor still a bloody mess in her arms.

Kyle mouths wordlessly, out of breath and fear of her and for Derek clogging up his throat, but Allison seems to have no such compunction.

"We need to stop," she says bravely and well, Kyle always knew Allison had guts, but if it was a copy of him, he's not sure he'd be able to face it with such confidence. "We've been walking for hours and Derek's-"

"Severely dehydrated," the metal says, eyeing Derek carefully, without any intonation or change in expression whatsoever.

There is a long pause in which Kyle, Allison, and everyone else just stare at her.

Allison closes her mouth and then opens it again.

"We need to take a break," she says shakily, confidence destroyed. "We can't keep going like this much longer."

The copy tilts her head oddly and then looks around at the rest of them. Kyle feels a shock go through him when her eyes run over him and Derek. He wonders if she's X-raying them or something.

"Okay," she says simply.

There is another long pause as Kyle and Allison stare at her in surprise, but then the moment is broken when people around them start to sink to the ground in exhaustion. The robot watches them all in vague surprise, like the idea that they might not be able to walk nonstop for hours with no water never occurred to her.

Then, she turns mechanically, walks a few paces, and carefully places Connor against a flat slab of rock sticking up out of the hill. He makes a pained sound and jerks his head around, but ultimately does not wake. He's even paler than Derek, his face bruised badly, and even from Kyle's bad vantage point, he can see his blood-covered hands. They'd ripped all his fingernails off, he realizes, stomach twisting in disgust.

"What's-" Derek slurs and Kyle shakily pushes his bangs off of his sweat drenched forehead.

"It's...it's okay," Allison says bracingly, pulling on Derek's shoulders until his head is resting in her lap. "We're just going to take a break and then we'll keep going."

The woman next to Allison moans softly at her words, but they all know they don't have a choice. It's keep moving or die.

"Connor-" Derek chokes, eyes fluttering violently. "Kyle, you have to-"

"He's fine, Derek, promise," Kyle lies, and grips Derek's right hand tightly in his. "Just get some rest, okay?"

Kyle glances over at Connor and the copy, and is shocked to see a middle-aged black man approaching them.

The copy turns in his direction and stares at him, unblinkingly.

"I-I," the man stutters, wringing his hands together, but holding his ground. "I worked in the infirmary at Kansas Bunker. I could-" He makes a wide, helpless gesture towards Connor, eyes weary and scared, and Kyle feels of rush of pride at how, even now, they all pull together for Connor.

However, that rush soon turns into anxiety as he holds his breath for the cyborg's response.

The Not-Allison gives the man a quick once over and then shrugs, an odd motion for a machine.

"Go," she says flatly and the man hurries forward to kneel in front of Connor, hands working at the zipper of his jacket.

The copy watches him emotionlessly for a while and then turns away. To Kyle's surprise, she takes off her own jacket, revealing several bloody bullet holes in the dull green shirt she wears underneath. She pulls off the shirt as well-Allison turns red with shame- and then proceeds to pick the bullets out of her fake skin with her _bare hands_.

Their group is silent; those with enough energy just all _stare_ at the spectacle of the machine that saved all their lives for reasons Kyle doesn't even want to think about at this juncture. She doesn't seem to notice their shocked looks, or, if she does, she doesn't care.

Kyle shakes himself. Of course she doesn't care, she's a machine! Even if the flesh outside looks real...he looks away and tries to pretend he doesn't notice the tears brimming in Allison's eyes.

"How is he?" Sayles and a couple other soldiers come up to stand around Derek, each looking just as exhausted as Kyle feels.

"He'll be fine," Kyle says, not because he knows, but because Derek _has_ to be.

Sayles looks down at Derek for a couple seconds and then turns suspiciously to look at the cyborg, still picking bullets out of her back.

"What are we going to do about it?" he says quietly, but the disgust and anger in his eyes is telling enough.

"Later," Kyle says shortly. Allison has fixed her eyes to the ground, fingers convulsively scratching at a stain of what is probably oil on the sleeve of Derek's jacket. Kyle knows it could be worse- the machine's not completely naked from the waist up, she's still got a nondescript sports bra on, and twenty years ago it wouldn't have been a big deal. But it's 2029 now and even after Connor united all the fragmented groups into his army, rape is still something most women live in fear of everyday. In this broken world, women don't show that amount of skin, _ever_ , if they can help it. Not to mention it's Allison's _body_ , a perfect copy and she has no control over what it does.

"But-" Sayles starts mutinously, but Kyle cuts him off with a venomous look.

"I said _later_ , Sayles," he says with as much strength as he can. His chest aches, but he has to do this. There's no time to argue over what the correct thing to do is. They have a plan and they have to stick with it, or they're all going to die right here in the desert.

The machine pulls her clothes back on and then turns to watch the man trying to fix up Connor as best as he can. A couple other people that Kyle vaguely recognizes from the medical bay have joined him, but there's not much they can do without any supplies.

"Are you just going to let-" Sayles hisses and Kyle shoots up in a burst of fury.

"Don't _make_ me pull rank on you!" he snarls, fed up with this all. Derek is unconscious, Connor's been tortured, they just got saved by a metal copy of _Allison_ , and they have miles to go before they're anywhere near safe. "We don't have time for this right now!"

"Then when is the time?" Sayles roars in frustration, teeth gritted in anger and looking less and less sane every second that goes by.

"Stop it, both of you!" Allison shouts from the ground, Derek's head still cradled in her lap, but Kyle pays her no heed, adrenaline pumping through his veins, heedless of sense or logic.

"What do you think we can do?" he says with an insane laugh, ignoring the stares of everyone around them. "You think we can take her?"

"Shut up!" Sayles says, throwing a worried look over his shoulder at the fake Allison. "Listen," he continues in a whisper. "I picked this up off one of the skinjobs when we were escaping." He pulls his jacket away from his body and shows Kyle the gun tucked in his waistband. "A couple of the others got some too. If we take it by surprise-"

"It'll kill you," Kyle snarls savagely in reply, grabbing Sayles harshly by the front of his jacket. "We need way more firepower than that to take one of those down, you know that as well as I do!"

"We don't have any other choice!" Sayles says angrily, but he also looks honestly puzzled. "Why can't you see that?"

Kyle opens his mouth to reply, but then the pain in his chest flares up again and an excruciating cough bursts from his lungs. He drops to his knees in pain, hears Allison calling his name, but it's all too much for him and he passes out.

When he wakes up next, he's in Serrano Point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Yeah, yeah, I know it's been forever, but I decided to finally get back to writing this one again. Sorry for the shortness of the chapter, but I figured it'd be best to get something out, considering I posted the first part, you know, a year and a half ago. I'll try and update more regularly now, but no promises. Many thanks to Resonance and D for the beta!
> 
> Please review!


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